Working with senior leaders to align their people around shared goals, values and stories.

About CAST

OUR HISTORY / OUR SERVICE

We believe alignment is a human function, not a process or scorecard.

Leaders align people by providing them with Connection – to meaningful work, shared values, and community; and Direction – through clear strategy, assignments and expectations. The result is an engaged workforce–employees fully invested in the right priorities, fully bought in to the right behaviors, and creating a meaningful, measurable difference for your business. Jim Knutsen founded Cast in 1999. The company is based in Colorado, and works with clients across the country.

01/ MISSION | VISION | VALUES

We help organizations identify and articulate the core ideology that sets them apart and makes decision-making clear. Our work is designed to create clarity of purpose across the enterprise, and to be deeply embedded in daily operations (not laminated and tacked to a wall).

02/ FACILITATED STRATEGIC PLANNING

We design planning sessions for better use of client time, better collaboration among participants, better decisions made, and better long-term outcomes. We partner with clients to co-create the meeting around clear, measurable goals, and then Cast manages design, logistics and overnight follow up. Jim Knutsen has designed and facilitated more than 500 client planning meetings since 1999.

03/ ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

We help owners, boards of directors and senior executives transform organizational strategy and culture to meet the demands of a changing marketplace. Our work focuses first on building a strong employment brand, creating a culture that works hard for employees so they can deliver for customers. Transformation work begins with a culture audit, including a proven model for quantitative assessment, which we follow up with focus groups and leader interviews.

04/ HIGH-PERFORMING LEADERSHIP TEAMS

Healthy organizations are run by cohesive leadership teams. We work with senior leaders to align around shared purpose and goals, and a shared commitment to healthy, collaborative behavior. We teach leadership teams how to have difficult conversations, help teams discover how they are stronger together, and organization teams around the rights roles and responsibilities.

REPRESENTATIVE CLIENT EXPERIENCE

COMMITMENTS

What we Bring to the Table

01/ TRUTH

We’re here to help, and half-truths aren’t very helpful. We are objective, constructive and future-focused on our assessements, but we are also honest about what’s broken, or not serving the organization well.
What we expect in return: Your honesty with us, about your needs, your strengths and weaknesses, and our performance on your project.

02/ ATTENTION

We work with only a short list of select clients based on their fit with our values and expertise. Which means clients get our deep attention, and focused commitment on their needs. We’re not building an empire, we’re investing deeply in clients we love.
What we expect in return: Your full commitment to the project as defined and the client role as scoped.

03/ CLARITY

We’re not big on fancy business jargon and MBA-speak. We communicate for clarity. The goal is not to impress, it’s to move, persuade and illuminate.
What we expect in return: Commit to open communication throughout the project. Keep your team informed and engaged with plain, honest talk.

04/ FOCUS

We’re a small, focused practice. I’m not trying to be McKinsey Consulting. There’s a lot we don’t do, and won’t offer because you’d be off engaging someone with focused expertise. In some cases, we’ll bring in a consulting partner, in others we’ll refer you elsewhere.
What we expect in return: Keep the project in scope.

Cast Founder

Jim Knutsen

Jim Knutsen

CEO

My name’s Jim Knutsen, and Cast is my consulting firm. I’m obsessed with clarity and simplicity. I like client relationships that last. I see myself as a sort of midwife for your strategy and values; they’re in there, we just need to coax them out.

Testimonials

“Cast helped us articulate our cultural commitments to one another. Jim’s approach was collaborative, innovative, and practical; his facilitation and thought-partnership not only enabled the project’s success, but also contributed to our long-term success as a company.”

Chris Miller — VP Strategy & Marketing, The Fresh Market

“Jim has been a valued partner for more than six years, immersing himself in our culture and building relationships with key employees at all levels. He’s helped us shape our company goals and strategic plans, driven critical change initiatives, and created communication plans that engage and inspire our employees.”

Donna Carpenter—President/Founder, Burton Snowboards

“Through the past decade of working with Jim, he has proven the ability to align leadership teams across large companies like Target as well as smaller companies like Cherokee. Jim’s authentic approach, ability to facilitate honest and open communication across all levels of the organization, and his commitment to understanding the company from every angle, results in everyone working together as a unified team and reaching a higher level of performance. I would never want to lead a company without Jim’s involvement! “

Sally Mueller, Target/Cherokee/Mueller Marketing

Our Thinking — We used to blog our thoughts on leadership, culture and communication, back when blogs were still a thing. We’ve saved a few of our favorite posts here, and they still give a pretty good flavor for how we think and speak and work. Who knows? I might even update it from time to time.